Track of the Week - Rithma, Down in the Basement
Because nothing winds down a lively girltini party at Chihuahua Manor like purring, lazy house that extols the virtues of fine nights spent with friends.

Track of the Week: Three N'One - Soul Freak
I was down in D's basement recently while he was playing some records that hadn't seen the light of day for quite some time, and remembered why I love this track so very, very much. It never got played out a lot, which saved it from the - how to put it delicately? - cheesetastic fate of so much melodic trance. But it remains an awesomely well constructed, emotionally huge track, just gorgeous to lose yourself in and impossible to listen to without a thrill going up your spine.

Later, D put on the new Death Cab for Cutie album. Like Sharam Jey, Benjamin Gibbard knows how to write melodies that start off deceptively simple then proceed to unfold while simultaneously expanding, resonating the whole time. These guys couldn't do a better job on your limbic system if they had diplomas in neuroscience and a handful of electrodes in their back pockets. Kudos.

Books of the Week: Whiteout and Whiteout: Melt, by Greg Rucka
I've read and enjoyed Greg Rucka's excellent Atticus Kodiak novels, but Whiteout was the first time I'd picked up one of his graphic novels. Both volumes feature US Marshal Carrie Stetko investigating crimes set in Antarctica - and while Rucka's a solid storyteller, it's Steve Lieber's illustrations that elevate the storyline into something else altogether.

I'm no stranger to 40 below, but at least I live in a part of the world where as long as you respect the climate, you're likely to survive it. The only thing respect alone will buy you in Antarctica is a very little more time. What I particularly like is the way Lieber's artwork invokes both the shadowy noir aspects of the investigation and the looming omnipresence of the ice, as if it's an additional character that's both amoral and lethal.

Book of the Week: Gridlinked, by Neal Asher
It would be easy to compare Asher to Iain M. Banks: British writer of space opera, more accessible and less dystopian than Alastair Reynolds or China Mieville. The thing about Asher, though, is that he does a very good job of writing about people who are more committed to violence than is really healthy, which allows an unhinged terrorist's cross-galaxy vendetta to be both unsettling and entertaining. Although I saw the ending coming, you've got to like any novel that can make you root for both the recently de-linked operative jonesing for his interface and the psychopathic android who carries around a toy doggie.